


Scarlet Days, Scarlet Nights

by Summerfield (02X6_ifNow)



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/02X6_ifNow/pseuds/Summerfield
Summary: A short story about a vampire mansion's flooded basement.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. … the damnable start of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for touhou-project.com.

* * *

The basement flooded.

The fact of it was made known to the noble lady of the manse some twelve minutes into the new calendar day, or six minutes after Remilia’s wine-soaked head had made blessed contact with cool satin pillow, or two hours after the lady Scarlet had begun indulging in earnest in the privacy of her quarters for reasons she tried hard and presently was failing to keep secret: quarters which were summarily invaded by an indignant younger sister, who felled their arcane protections as if like Roman walls before Ottoman guns, and who marched in with the heavy footfalls of Ottoman Janissary troops, and who seized her in her bed like dared none other than Flandre Scarlet, sister to and only extant kin of the Scarlet Devil, and began to _shake_ her.

“Wake up and get your wits about you you sorry drink-sotted excuse for an elder sister why here you lay crocked in bed like a _jelly_ like a pickled fish in aspic like the refuse of decent society you can’t even keep your own self in order much less your own house well don’t you know the basement is flooding.”

“Flandre stop it I tell you to stop it here what’s the matter the basement is _what_.”

“ _Flooding_ , damn you, taking in water, you must be deaf as a bat, Patchouli, make yourself of some use and transport us there, do catch your _breath_ you matchstick woman, desist with that ghastly wheezing.”

It would be well to note that teleportation, performed under ideal conditions, by a well rested magician, in clement weather, over largely flat ground, with proper equipment and time ahead to prepare, might reach just shy of _gentle_.

Teleportation, conducted by Patchouli Knowledge plus two flights of stairs (upward, at forced march), passing through the floors of the Scarlet Devil Mansion (stately Queen Anne style, but if the Queen were the subject of an Ilya Repin painting, together with her son Ivan), was otherwise.

“ _O, Astaphaios_ ,” said Patchouli, and it was done.

“Oh, God,” said Remilia, and vomited. _Sakuya_ , she nearly called, before she remembered. _No Sakuya. Not anymore. She's_ gone _. By Jove, why did she have to leave? And for the Underworld, of all places?_

Concurrent with this thought, her eyes landed blearily upon the basement entrance, and the now full-foot of water lapping its unhurried way up the stairs.

“Oh, _God_ ,” said Remilia again, and, ten miles away and up a mountainside, Yasaka Kanako vomited.

“If you think passion unto the Lord’s side will deliver you from having to deal with this then you are sorely mistaken, I tell you this right now,” said Flandre, and lifted the elder Scarlet to her feet, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth. “Here, spit, get it out of your mouth. I’ll make damned sure of it, I’ll storm the gates and drag you back here by the waist of your frilly—”

“ _Stent thee_ ,” growled Remilia, who by now had recombobulated herself somewhat. She took the handkerchief and wiped away the last traces of vomit from her face and neck, and then tossed the soiled cloth onto the remaining pool on the floor, incinerating it with a gout of flame from her fingertips. “Patchouli, can you _ack—_ ”

“Imbecile,” said Flandre, and extinguished the noxious creation of burning 40-proof vomit.

“Patchouli,” Remilia continued on heedless, “are you not able to stem this flow?” She paused. “The day is?”

“Friday,” answered both sister and magician. “Metal,” added the magician.

“If you are still conscious of days other than Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and Pancake Tuesday,” added Flandre.

A sigh was not emitted by Remilia, nor groan, nor whine, and neither did she desire dearly to emit one. “Then, stoppering it?”

“Would require knowledge of the whereabouts of the source,” said Patchouli.

“And you are unable to descry it from afar,” asked Remilia, perfunctorily more than anything else.

“Indeed not,” said Patchouli, grateful for the question, in the manner of one who is enchanted by her own exposition. “As well you know,” she straightened her posture, “the basement carries the property of _terra ignota_ , by consequence of the ritual murders performed around its construction. One may not scry into it, nor chart its lay, spells are broken, maps and instruments confounded. It cannot be navigated in any way except by the person herself.”

All present took appropriate pause at the declaration.

“Then,” said Remilia, “if that is what must be done.” She spoke the words with gravitas, in the manner of one who by default understands _herself_ to mean _anyone but herself_ , and, in specific, _a horde of disposable fairies_.

Patchouli nodded with understanding. The Great Unmoving Library was of much the same species in this regard. “I shall have Meiling gather the help,” she said, and floated sedately off.

The Scarlet Devil ran a hand through the top of her lavender hair, and began combing and curling it with her fingers. This was only the beginning, she knew, and a permanent solution would be a larger undertaking still. She would need to invite _builders_ , the word thought with a vehemence grown only from experience, to ascertain the extent of the damage, arrange for the necessary repairs, and oversee restoration of the interior space. Remuneration was, of course, a matter at every stage, and a _concern_ , even, with the state of their coffers. It would be weeks or months before a satisfactory conclusion could be had. She closed her eyes, parted her hair with both hands, letting cool air grace her forehead, and then covered her face. _If Sakuya were here_ —

“Dear sister,” said Flandre sweetly, reasserting her presence and breaking the elder Scarlet away from the thought. “While the matter is to be attended to,” she leaned forward girlishly, with shoulders pushed forth and arms held behind her back, “I shall require someplace to live.” She paused, placing a finger to her lip, faux pondering. “Perhaps one might be so _gracious_ as to offer up one’s own—”

“No,” said Remilia, and summoned Gungnir precisely in the intervening space between her neck and Laevateinn’s point.

Laevateinn’s master clicked her disappointment.

“Suitable quarters will be prepared for you,” said the Scarlet Devil.

“One is grateful, as it were,” said Flandre, and swished the sword to her side with a casual moulinet.

“And if you think you have won yourself any favours with such a display,” continued the Scarlet Devil, not lowering her own spear, but levelling it in return of the earlier provocation, “you, dear _sister_ , are bitterly mistaken.”

If a _posta di donna, distra_ could be sarcastic, then thus, in challenge, was Laevateinn raised up; and, “Prove it,” was the whole of the reply.

Battle was joined, and decided.

“Damn fool sister,” muttered Flandre as she stalked up three flights of stairs, paying no mind to her own bruises and aches. The Scarlet Devil was draped insensate over her shoulders, in a pose which might possibly be considered dignified if framed next to an oni with a facial tattoo and also chronic gout. “Even you have got your own limit. What were you thinking, bloody-minded idiot, you’ll make a fine mountain goat in your next life, it’s what you should have been, you’ve got the bony skull for it.”

She entered the room and deposited her sister gingerly into her bed, glowering down at her sleeping face.

“The most charismatic mountain goat in the Andes.”

But the animus which had driven her earlier was drained from her now. In its place were deeper frustrations, their roots grown gnarled over her years so that she could not remember where one began and the other ended. She wondered when it had come to pass that she had lost her reverence for her elder sister, and then her elevation of her, and then her respect. That she had lost all of these things was evident enough to her, and perhaps even right. Perhaps, being incomplete abstractions, they contained and presupposed within themselves their own contradictions, and could not have persisted so. This was as unsatisfying as it sounded.

Remilia slumbered now. The lady Scarlet wore many things when she was awake; a noble air, a mercury tongue, fearsome reputation and bloodied annals, crimson eyes that saw all things and saw all that was between all things; but all of it was to be shed at the limit of the waking hours. What remained was Remilia, soft and a little round in the face, as if five centuries of _being_ had not laid finger upon her.

 _Disgusting_ , thought Flandre, and felt her hand well up in a fist.

She closed her eyes, and waited for the urge to pass, shaking her head at herself. Instead, she inked her finger with a murmured spell. Tomorrow, she knew, would see its own share of quarrels, and as would the day after that. Tonight, Remilia would sleep, and Flandre would direct the fairies in her place. And, in the morning, Remilia would awake, rested, fresh, and bearing facial adornment worthy of another Ilya Repin painting. (Yes, the one about the Cossacks.)

* * *

Dahlia was a fairy, with sea-green hair and sea-green eyes.

Fairies, as they come, tend to be small, inconsequential creatures, who, with a few noteworthy exceptions, well, noteworthy for fairies, anyway, quite enjoy and in fact revel in their status as small and inconsequential. It is a benefit to them, like poverty is a benefit to the martial prowess of the Hakurei. And for a fairy in the employ of the Scarlet Devil Mansion this was true most of all, finding her decent clothes, regular meals, a soft bed, and a sense of dignity and camaraderie uncommon to fairies in the wild.

But even a fairy has the sense of when something greater than herself is happening. And even a fairy (with sea-green hair and sea-green eyes) knows to be worried, when she is handed overalls, galoshes, and an oil lantern (fairies are never to be trusted with fire), and the fairy beside her (with burgundy hair and burgundy eyes) is handed the same overalls, galoshes, and a fireplace poker (trusted with sharp implements neither), and this even before they are hustled two by two through a scorched and pitted passageway into an unlit, flooded, labyrinthine basement where ill-boding shadows played beneath the surface.

Two orders had been given her. The first was simple enough.

_Find the leak, immediate._

The second could stock libraries with volumes unspoken.

_Retrieve survivors, if any._

To say Dahlia was a worried fairy, then, would fall somewhere short of adequate. To say Dahlia was terrified enough to jump out of her own skin if she were startled, conversely, would be an abuse of hyperbole. But when a hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind, she certainly did what terrified, startled fairies are wont to do, which was to shriek and run her gossamer wings fast enough to _hum_.

“Steady on!” exclaimed the fairy behind her. “There’s no need for that.”

Dahlia turned around, finding herself face to face with what was indeed another fairy. And if there is another law of fairies, it is that they gain no greater confidence than from the company of their own.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and ceased to imitate a chainsaw murder. She would have bowed by reflex, but she was stopped by a bracing hand from the other fairy. Following her gaze, Dahlia remembered the lantern in her hands, and jerked it up from where she had been about to submerge it.

“I’m not fond of this any more than you are,” said the other fairy (with the burgundy hair and burgundy eyes, and who was bigger, and so had been handed the poker), “but it looks like we’re together, so let’s get along, shan’t we?”

“Yes,” said Dahlia. “I’m Dahlia,” said Dahlia. She made sure not to bow again. “I take care of the gardens.”

“Hortensia,” said the fairy who was Hortensia. “The kitchen, for me.”

“Oh,” said Dahlia. Kitchen fairies were a hand-picked cadre, she knew, selected for the rare twin attributes of self-control around the Mansion’s food stocks and ability not to injure themselves when handling kitchen equipment. They seldom commingled with fairies of other stations, largely due to the predictably incessant clamors for extra food with which they would be accosted, and were especially unsympathetic of library fairies, who clamored twice as loud as other fairies and used words like _class traitor_ and _reactionary_ when they did so. “I take care of the gardens,” Dahlia said again, just to be sure Hortensia remembered it.

“Mind you keep that lantern dry,” said Hortensia, glancing around. “It’s _caliginous_ in here.”

“Dark, too,” added Dahlia. The shadows made themselves oppressive somehow, swallowing light instead of being banished by it. She could make out the walls only by where the water’s surface found its end, and that only by the glimmering of lamplight over it. “And the _damp_. Is there nowhere dry we could stay?”

“Stay?” asked Hortensia, blinking. “You don’t mean for us to hole ourselves up somewhere, do you?”

“Well,” said Dahlia, “it would be easier, wouldn’t it?” She paused, thinking. “We could play rummy.”

Hortensia clicked her tongue. “That won’t do,” she said, and twirled the fire poker, looking at it meaningfully. “I dare say it’s more than just us fairies down here.”

Dahlia blanched. “You don’t mean?”

“I _do_ mean,” said Hortensia. “If what you mean by what I mean is the same as what I mean by what I mean, of course.”

The garden fairy pouted. “That’s fundamentally unknowable.”

“Well, what I mean is,” said Hortensia, and then she thrust the poker down into the water in a twisting low-guard point, leaning what weight she could muster onto it as something furious began to splash beneath the surface. When it subsided, the kitchen fairy lifted it up, and what _it_ was took a moment to arrive to Dahlia. _It_ was a snakehead fish from the Misty Lake, fully as long as the kitchen fairy was tall. The poker had stuck it right through the flat centre of its namesake head, and its jaw leered open in death, loop of pointed teeth on full display. “This,” said Hortensia, pointing.

“Ah, deixis,” said Dahlia. And then she screamed.

(What Dahlia had meant was ghosts.)

* * *

“I found her sleeping under the honeysuckles,” said Meiling. Her lip twitched into a frown at the distant shriek echoing from the basement. “But that’s really the last we can spare until morning comes around.”

“I see,” said Patchouli Knowledge blandly, though her brows were furrowed deeper than usual.

Hong Meiling sighed, leaning against the doorway of the cabinet room. “Like I said, if you’d just let me,” she began, but let go of the sentence when Flandre glanced over to her. “Yes, yes, I am _needed in the interest of her ladyship’s defence_.” If there was one thing the lady Flandre did not do, it was to reverse a decision once made. Privately, she supposed she was grateful of it, on balance. It did something to fill the void which had grown of late, as much as it perturbed her to see so uncharacteristic a seriousness from the younger sister.

“It would seem that the influx is constant,” said Patchouli, “if not tarrying. Anything that is on the floor is already waterlogged; contrariwise anything that is _off_ the floor is like to remain safe past dawn, at the least.”

“Hm?” Meiling looked up. “That can’t be right. Then how are there fish getting in?”

“I have taken measurements every quarter hour,” said Patchouli, testily, but at least that was usual, “for the past five hours. It _is_ right.”

“I mean they won’t,” said Meiling, and held up her hands, “fit.” The reports she had received told of fish up to several _THIS long!_ and presumably proportionally wide, and both the descriptions and the specimens Meiling had caught were every bit alike the ones she usually fished up from the lake. At present, the specimens lay in the kitchen, smoking while fully disrobed. (But what sort of manners can one expect from a fish, really.)

“I wonder if there is an Eastern medicine for those who are allergic to certain words or phrases,” said Flandre acidly, and cast a side eye at Patchouli who called herself Knowledge. “We _don’t know_ how,” she continued, turning back to Meiling. “That is why you are needed here, and not meandering about down there.”

“Of course, your ladyship,” said Meiling, before she could stop herself.

Flandre chose to ignore it.

“The water sample is identical in every regard to lake water,” said Patchouli, and she frowned meaningfully as she did so.

She waited for a response.

When Flandre only raised an eyebrow in the Gallic fashion, the magician sighed, and continued, “It is _identical_. The expected result would indicate a change in solved substances after penetrating the intervening soil and collecting upon the basement floor.” Patchouli Knowledge paused, and flicked her tongue in anticipation of the words to come: “I have a theory.”


	2. … the bloody rest of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for touhou-project.com.

* * *

“We’re lost,” moaned Dahlia. “Utterly and hopelessly lost.”

The garden fairy was soaked from head to toe, and her left side was spattered with red from one close call with a fish that she knew in her heart of hearts must have been fathered by an alligator. She had shot it through from tonsil to tail, just as its jaws were about to snap shut on her arm. _Life was never fair to you, Gilliam the Bastard._

At least the lantern was still dry.

“That won’t do,” said Hortensia. The kitchen fairy sported a more even, primered, coat of blood. She was _chirurgical_ with her poker, to a degree that almost frightened Dahlia, but then again Dahlia supposed she must have had experience slaughtering fish. Meiling typically fished with her bare hands, and the Kitchen demanded freshness, so she delivered them still flopping and more than a little untoward. “Besides, we can hardly be lost if we don’t know our destination. Then it just chalks under Progress.”

“That’s rot,” Dahlia continued to moan. She pointed, “Look, it’s the third time we’ve seen that icebox now.”

“There could be more than one,” said Hortensia.

“It’s got a fairy in it,” said Dahlia sullenly, and what she had meant by _icebox_ was _solid upright block of ice_.

“There could still be more than one,” said Hortensia.

“I recognise her,” said Dahlia, more sullenly. “It’s Cirno.”

“Who?” said Hortensia.

“She doesn’t work here,” said Dahlia. “Actually, she just doesn’t,” said Dahlia, “work.”

Muffled snoring was heard.

“Shall we chip her out of it?” said Hortensia. “Perhaps she knows what’s going on?”

“ _Huh huh huh_ ,” said Dahlia, which is the sound one makes when laughing but actually despairing.

“Well, now, look,” said Hortensia, “which way did we turn the last time we saw it? We’ll just turn the opposite way this time.” She clapped once. “Simplicity itself.”

“I don’t,” said Dahlia, “remember.”

“Well, I happen to think it was left,” said Hortensia.

“Liar,” said Dahlia.

“Then we’ll save left for next time,” said Hortensia, and turned the right corner.

What was around the right corner was a glitterstained corpse, (with delphinium hair and delphinium eyes,) perched up on a crate.

Hortensia plugged her right ear (Dahlia was to her right) for the requisite three and a half seconds, and then said, “Gruesome.”

“Gruesome yourself,” said the gruesome. “You’re no succour for weary eyes.” It shook its head. “Or ears.”

“You’re alive,” gasped Dahlia. “Y-You’re hurt!”

“Oh, very astute,” said the fairy, who was a fairy, and spat a mouthful of haemoglitter. “I’ll not be either for much longer, so rest your little head.”

“No,” said Dahlia, and clutched the lamp in front of her chest. “How can you say that?”

The fairy rasped a sigh, raising a hand to shield her eyes, which were behind round-lensed glasses, and turned to Hortensia instead. “Theodosia, from the library. We were the first ones they sent.” She saw the poker in the kitchen fairy’s hand, and smiled bitterly. “They didn’t give us any weapons. Not that it would have done us lot any bit of good.”

Dahlia lowered the lamp. “I’m Dahlia,” she said, by default. “I take care of the gardens.”

“Hortensia,” said Hortensia. After a pause, she added, “The kitchen.”

“O Fates,” muttered Theodosia. “A yokel, and a dragoon. Let me just expire right now, by the grace of Finvarra.”

“Pettish one, isn’t she,” said Hortensia, cocking a brow. “And have you found the leak, then?”

“Sure,” said Theodosia. She waved a hand behind her. “Up in the very back, through a good third, maybe half, of the entire north wall. _The_ leak.” She scoffed. “It just seeps through wherever it pleases. Go and see for yourself, if you want to end up like me. Or like Chrysanthe. I’ll not forget _that_ in a lifetime. Hello, is that her jaw floating right there?”

Dahlia didn’t look.

“Come on,” said Hortensia, and reached out a hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Theodosia smiled again. Her teeth glittered direly. “Sooner drink a salamander under the table. I can keep _them_ away, which is why we’re able to carry on like this, but there is no mistaking it: I am to die of my hurts.”

Hortensia rolled her eyes at the melodrama. “What, _pray_ , befell you, then?”

“If you _must_ know,” said Theodosia, and lifted up her shirt.

“Oh,” said Hortensia.

Dahlia didn’t look.

“Now,” said the library fairy, “if you _please_.”

“You don’t have to,” said Dahlia, still not looking, “die.” She squeezed the ring of the lantern. “I can help you.”

“You’re off your chump,” said Hortensia. “She’s mince.”

“Crude,” said Theodosia, grimacing, “but possessing the quality of truth.”

“I have to try, at least,” said Dahlia, closing her eyes. “O-Only let your shirt down, and give me your hand.”

“Oh, very well.” Theodosia acquiesced, holding up a limp hand and looking away. “What shall you do, then? Pray for intercession?”

Dahlia ignored the question and turned the hand over, handing the lantern to Hortensia. She placed two fingers on the wrist, taking the pulse at three places along the arm, while at the same time regulating her own pulse and breathing, and tried to align their energies and meridians. Then, she laid a palm on Theodosia’s wounded side, which glowed with placid light. The library fairy fluttered her eyes, but, finding her pain lessen, opened them wide again, breathing deep.

“That is marvelous,” said Hortensia, watching on. “Where did you learn a corker like that?”

“Miss Meiling allows us to watch while she does her keeping fit,” said the garden fairy. “Sometimes she teaches us things like that.”

The kitchen fairy opened her mouth, and then clicked it shut. “I see,” she said. She tried not to dwell upon the _interregnum_ at her own post.

“I,” said Theodosia, “th-that is— Thank you.” She repeated herself, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” Dahlia smiled, helping the library fairy to her feet. “Let’s not tarry.”

They were interrupted by the sound of crumbling ice from their left, and _siren song_ from their right.

* * *

Flandre Scarlet retrieved another measuring glass, and ground at the remnants of the previously-one with her heel.

Flandre Scarlet had very good ears.

* * *

 _My word_ , said Cirno, except it sounded a good deal more like: “HUH!! WHAT’S GOING ON!! IT’S DARK!! WHERE AM I!!”

“OOooOOoooOOaaAAaaAAaaAAA,” said the siren.

“Oh, _blast_ ,” muttered Hortensia.

Theodosia narrowed her eyes, clutching at her formerly wounded side. “ _The Kraken awakes._ ”

“There’s also a fish woman,” muttered Dahlia.

Kitchen fairy glanced at library fairy glanced at garden fairy glanced at kitchen fairy.

To advance was to do battle with the siren. This was a certainty. Fairies, owing to their distantly shared heritage, suffered no disturbance from a siren’s song, save for what might be inferred from its prior representation in text. Fairies were also, cousinhood among fey being what it is, a preferred prey of sirens, or, at the very least, ecological competitors who also made for a healthful vitamin afterwards. Sirens, then, weren’t gentlemen, and they weren’t princesses, either.

To retreat was, well, Cirno was an ice fairy.

“What chance do we have with the fish woman?” asked Dahlia.

Theodosia stared into her soul.

Dahlia looked anywhere but back at the library fairy. (Or at the discarded jawbone.) “Please forget I asked,” she said.

Theodosia didn’t forget. Theodosia couldn’t forget. Theodosia poked at Dahlia’s navel. “They start from here,” said Theodosia. “I don’t mean the fish tail.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dahlia.

“They like to eat from the inside out,” said Theodosia.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” said Dahlia.

“And from the bottom up,” said Theodosia.

“ _I’b sorwy_ ,” said Dahlia, sniffling.

Theodosia reached out and began patting the garden fairy’s head.

“And so,” said Hortensia, after a while, “this Cirno blighter. What’s she _like_?”

Cirno, in point of fact, had been carrying on as usual the whole time. Her lung capacity was outstanding. She could have made a nice career in the opera house, if she had the patience for it, which she didn’t, and, really, it’s pointless to consider. Presently, she was saying something along the lively spirit of, _What a conundrum! I suppose I am left no option but to transmute the whole nine yards to ice_ , which was a perennial choice in the toolkit of the winged bag of hammers.

“I see,” Hortensia began to say, when at once a skin of ice snaked around the corner, threatening to glaze the room over. Kitchen and library fairy raised their hands in unison, elfshot gathering in their palms, when, as abruptly as it came, the ice shattered, floating in flakes on the water.

 _Most curious_ , said Cirno. One is learned by now in the art of interpretation.

The ice grew again, and shattered again. Some of the shards floated into, or perhaps through, the walls. Theodosia widened her eyes, and was about to speak.

“One of her friends is all right, I suppose,” said Dahlia, belatedly. Then, after blinking a few times, she brightened up, and handed her lantern to the library fairy.

“Hello,” Theodosia said instead.

Dahlia cupped her hands around her mouth, and breathed in:

“ONE ICE FAIRY IS WORTH TEN FISH WOMEN!!”

By pure reflex, Hortensia and Theodosia cupped their hands around their own mouths, deeper natures boiling to the surface in an instant:

“ONE FISH WOMAN IS WORTH TEN ICE FAIRIES!!”

An angry-coloured blue rocketed past them, skating over the water and leaving twin wakes of ice in its streak.

_I beg your pardon??!!!!_

When the laughter had subsided, well, mostly subsided, they were lost again, and cared not a whit.

“We’ll get the Saint George’s Cross for this,” said Theodosia.

“I hope not,” said Dahlia. “Having just one Saint George upset with you sounds frightful enough. I didn’t know there were more.”

“We’ve trounced Silly and Charybdis,” said Hortensia. “We can trounce this Georges crumb.”

“You are both idiots,” said Theodosia.

“Idiots who scooped your sorry onion from the scallops,” said Hortensia. She laid a hand over her forehead. “ _Risk not thy noble and puissant selves, O gallant sirs! I am doomed to death from to die of mine perishing hurt._ ”

“I don’t sound like that,” grumbled Theodosia.

“You do sound a little bit like that,” said Dahlia.

“Okay, a little bit,” said Theodosia, and raised up her chin. “One doesn’t get by in the _Library_ ,” she trilled the word, “if one doesn’t.”

“Euch, really?” asked Hortensia, scrunching up her nose. “Makes _this_ place seem not so bally rotten after all.”

“At least it isn’t haunted here,” said Dahlia, blithely as could be.

Hortensia and Theodosia stopped, and looked at each other.

In the kitchen, as she spatulated another crepe onto the plate, Flandre Scarlet, for no reason that she could discern, chuckled to herself, and shook her head.

(There were no ghosts in the basement.)

(Not anymore, anyways.)

* * *

Flandre Scarlet, actually, was in the kitchen spatulating crepes for two reasons. The first, and the lesser, was to find herself a reprieve from the presence of, to dip briefly into one’s mind, _layabout asthmatic Chaldeans_ with the loathsome habit of believing themselves omniscient-in-progress.

The second was that dawn was soon to rise, and Remilia likewise with it. Here it was an abominable habit, Flandre believed, to govern oneself by daylight, owing to her general experience of it. She found that the light of the Sun imparted a paradoxical sort of warmth, which sapped the _warmth_ from warmth, by perishing from one the very notion that anything could ever be _cool_ or _cold_ again. It stifled the mind and the senses. Yet such was the practise of the Scarlet Devil, and Flandre knew by this point that she would not be convinced of to do otherwise.

The crepes were modestly topped with butter, lemon juice, and blueberries.

Flandre stood by the bedroom door, and waited.

“Come in,” said Remilia, from behind it, “Flan.”

“One was born with a mere two hands,” said Flandre. She held a pot of warm posset in the other.

There was the clinking of things being moved, and then Remilia Scarlet opened the door, slightly less rumpled than her nightclothes were. The bottles which had previously colonised her room now formed a glazed fairy circle in one corner of it. Flandre stepped in, and lifted up the crepes at Remilia, artificially raising the corners of her mouth briefly in the manner of one trying to swindle a genuine smile in return, before setting the breakfast down on the table reserved for the occasional such purpose.

“I know that barbarian maid of yours liked to salt the earth with _garlic_ in every dish,” she said, “but I don’t see how you can stand the taste of it.” She sat down and draped herself over the back of a chair. “Either way, we seem to be out.”

Remilia blinked for a fraction of a second longer than usual. “I see,” she said. “Thank you, Flandre,” she said. “You needn’t worry about it, Flandre,” she said, and spoke nothing further on the matter. (It never had been garlic.)

Neither spoke while the Scarlet Devil ate.

“Thank you, Flandre,” Remilia said, again, when she had finished the posset cure. “It is excellent.”

“Of course,” said Flandre.

Remilia smiled, and it was genuine.

Flandre smiled back.

“I suppose Patche must be waiting,” Remilia said, and her smile grew tired a little.

“The Chaldean has meditated upon the transcendental nature of the waters of the Flood,” said Flandre, which was both true in every word, and a gross abuse of periphrasis. “She is desirous of your ladyship’s audience.”

“I’ll thank you not to speak like that,” said Remilia, “of, to, or in the audible presence of any person who is innocent of a capital crime.” She shook her head. “I will be ready in,” she said, and stopped.

Flandre stood by her dressing table, an upright deck of playing cards placed against the surface. She turned the pack to face Remilia, leering like the torchbearer lampad on its cover.

The Scarlet Devil raised an eyebrow. “You are proposing?”

“A game,” said Flandre. “Poker,” she said, “heads-up.”

The Scarlet Devil pursed her lip, her crimson eyes narrowing. “And the medium of wager?”

“Time,” said Flandre.

“Time?” the Scarlet Devil asked, and raised a hand below her chin, cupping the elbow with the opposite hand, which she was wont to do when she was _intrigued_.

“Time,” repeated Flandre. “Each minute I win becomes another minute the game continues, and another minute where _you_ , dear sister, are kept safe away from whatever it is,” she fluttered a contemptuous hand, “that’s causing you to look like _that_.”

“Like _what_?” asked Remilia, smiling darkly.

“Oh,” said Flandre, smiling equally darkly back, “I shouldn’t say.” After all, Remilia Scarlet owned no mirrors.

They played from first light through to the full break of day.

* * *

 _They_ tramped through the exit, up the stairs, still drunk with the heady liqueur of victory, and threw off their galoshes.

“Finally,” sighed Dahlia.

“ _Sing to me of the fairy, Muse_ ,” orated Theodosia, “ _the fairy of twists and turns._ ”

“I’ve already told you I won’t take dictation of your memoirs,” said Hortensia.

Meiling found them, and led them into the cabinet room, where Patchouli Knowledge waited.

Theodosia saw the magician, and took a deep breath.

“We found the leak,” Hortensia began. “It—”

“I found it,” Theodosia spoke over her, and raised a hand.

“Now look here,” said Hortensia, but the library fairy shoved her way forward, closing her eyes.

“Report,” said Meiling.

“There’s no need,” said Patchouli Knowledge. She unsheathed a leaf-bladed dagger of copper from a glowing palm, and levitated Theodosia into it, as if the fatted calf. “ _O thou, Astaphe._ ”

“What,” growled Hortensia, raising up the fire poker, and burst into glitter.

Meiling pressed her lips thin, and set the poker down, turning to the garden fairy.

Dahlia sat down on the floor and didn’t move.

“I see,” said Patchouli Knowledge. “I see,” said Patchouli Knowledge again, and this time her brow unfurled a little. She released the library fairy, who fell limply in front of Dahlia. “Well done,” the magician said, as an afterthought, while she busied herself with the things in her pockets.

Meiling knelt down beside Theodosia.

Theodosia turned her head to Dahlia. The library fairy smiled feebly, delphinium eyes growing faint. She whispered something to Dahlia.

Meiling allowed it to happen, and then touched her forehead, and then Theodosia, too, was glitter.

Dahlia was silent. She stared where Theodosia’s lips had been, remembering them.

What had she said?

 _Anodyne_ , was it, perhaps?

No.

That wasn’t it.

“ _Another time._ ”

Dahlia nodded back, seven seconds late.

“You’d better get yourself cleaned up,” said Meiling, when Patchouli had left the room. “There are sandwiches in the hall.” After a moment, she added, “I’ll save some for you.”

And lo, by one’s guilty conscience, came _some_ to form mountains.

Dahlia smiled softly to herself, over a mouthful of tilapia and cream cheese. She swung her legs back and forth freely in the chair.

There came to her a singular thought, which nestled comfortably in her head.

_Tomorrow always comes._

It was a small, inconsequential, sea-green-haired thought, for a small, inconsequential, sea-green-eyed fairy of luck.

(“My lady has an admirable moustache,” she said, when Remilia entered the hall.)


	3. Flowering Days, Flowering Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for touhou-project.com.

* * *

1 The world is every state that is the case.

1.1 The world is the totality of real states, not of things.

1.11 The world is determined by the real states, and by these being _all_ the real states.

1.12 For the totality of real states determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.

1.13 The states in configural space are the world.

2 What is the case, is a real state, is the existence of elementary states.

2.1 An elementary state is a configuration of objects (entities, things).

2.11 It is essential to a thing that it can be a constituent part of an elementary state.

2.12 In causality nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in an elementary state the possibility of that thing must already be prejudged by a prior state.

3 The temporal realisation of a state is the instant.

3.1 The totality of instants is time.

4 Fifteen minute pause for refreshments.

5 Instants are truth-functions of elementary states.

5.01 Elementary states are truth-arguments of instants.

5.1 The truth-functions can be ordered in series. That is the foundation of cause and effect.

5.2 The structures of instants stand to one another in causal relations.

5.3 All instants are results of truth-operations on the elementary states. Every truth-operation creates from truth-functions of elementary states another truth-function of elementary states, i.e., an instant. The result of every truth-operation on the results of truth-operations on elementary states is also the result of _one_ truth-operation on elementary states.

5.4 Here it becomes clear that there are no such things as _free will_ or _motion_.

6 The general form of spacetime is: (d _s_ _k_ , _n_ )2 = ( _c_ d _t_ 1)2 \+ . . . + ( _c_ d _t_ _k_ )2 − (d _x_ _k_ +1)2 − . . . − (d _x_ _k_ + _n_ )2

7 Whereas time cannot move, therefore it must stand still.

Sakuya slipped the pocketwatch back into its pocket, and admired the Scarlet Devil Mansion from afar.

She didn’t need the pocketwatch for time to stop, of course. For time to stop was just a matter of perspective, and Sakuya had a remarkable amount of perspective for a human her age. But her pocketwatch still ran when time was stopped, which meant it would run off course. She then had to get it back _on_ course, which meant taking it out when time stopped, so she could remember the correct time, and taking it out again when time was about to resume, so she could wind it back. To anyone else, she just fiddled with a fancy pocketwatch she never actually checked.

That had been the case in the past, that is. But she had lately moved Underground, and whenever Sakuya moved somewhere, she made it a point to familiarise herself with the local shops and markets. On her first trip to the open-air market, or open-cavern market, rather, there had been a particularly insistent peddler who had tried his level best to convince her to purchase a small device which he had claimed was a _cell phone_ , or _cellular, mobile telephone_. Sakuya had known it was a fake even without having to see the rest of it because the people there didn’t have cars to keep them in. The peddler was an oni, however, and probably did not know the strength of what he had thought to be a friendly hand on the shoulder, so Sakuya had found herself needing for time to stop to avoid a possibly serious injury, which would have spoiled her settling in. When time did stop, of course, she’d therefore had to adjust her pocketwatch, and it had caught the peddler’s eye. For the peddler was a great admirer of mechanical timepieces, and he had made sure to specify _mechanical_ timepieces, because, as he had explained, these _cellular, mobile telephones_ had of late become popular in the Former Capital, and one of their myriad apparent features was that they told the time, which greatly obviated the need for devices, like clocks and watches, which could tell the time and only tell the time. This, of course, had saddened the oni greatly, but he had been heartened indeed to see a fellow adherent of the old ways of timekeeping, and indeed as Sakuya had become aware of the situation, she had begun to feel some degree of solidarity herself with the passionate oni. So she had confided in him thus, that her pocketwatch had this trouble about it, of running off and winding back every time. Now, the oni had not quite fully understood her explanation of how time night stop (and perhaps had regretted a little his haste in reaching out to what had turned out to be a madwoman), but oni, as they come, are a flexible and tolerant bunch, and Mr. Horologe (as he had exuberantly titled himself, the paint curdling off his glass house) was no exception. So he had humoured her, and shown her one of the pocketwatches in his collection, which had a special button on the side that one could press to halt its advance, and press again to allow its resumption. It was quite the stroke of engineering, though rather more workmanlike in design, having a case of stainless steel, in contrast to her then model, which was an elegant thing in an alloy called Alumigold. But the brushed gunmetal look had quite appealed to Sakuya’s sense of style, and the whole thing had been between fellow enthusiasts, so they had agreed not to pay too much heed to the difference in material value. Instead, the trade was that the oni would give Sakuya information about the Former Capital, and especially about its sense of business, to help her settle in with a minimum of trouble, and establish her mushroom business with a running start. This, of course, and the watches.

She still checked it every time, to make sure it properly stopped. But it did save on the fingers.

In any case, time, and timepiece, were indeed stopped.

Nobody really knew what Sakuya was like when time was stopped. Sakuya herself was quite chuffed by this idea, that she was a person of true mystery, and sometimes made a joke of appearing out of when time was stopped in an unusual state which implied something likewise unusual, yet indeterminate, about her activities while time had been stopped. She did this mainly when she was alone, however, because it wouldn’t do for a maid to be seen, for example, smouldering.

But now that she had decided to become a mushroom seller, she wondered if she wouldn’t let loose a little. (And she _had_ decided to become a mushroom seller, alongside with being a maid, for rɇasǫńs she didn’t terribly understand, but she accepted that the basket of chanterelles under her arm spoke for itself.) Since it was unheard of for a maid to be a mushroom seller on the side, it followed that when she was a mushroom seller, she would not be seen as a maid, and vice versa, and so she did not have to concern herself with the usual proprieties right now.

She decided to whistle while she walked.

Sakuya was a good whistler. She was an excellent whistler, actually, and could faithfully reproduce the songs of some sixty-eight bird species. Actually again, and to cut to the butter of it, like with chicken Kiev, she had a gift, for reproducing sounds with her voice. This extended to whistling, animal calls, impressions of people, accents in general, and enka singing.

She decided to whistle cowboy movie motifs.

Time was still stopped, of course. This was a trial run, before the real thing. While people wouldn’t see her whistling as a maid, they _would_ see her whistling as a mushroom seller, and the competition in the whistling sector among mushroom sellers was cutthroat, and, unfortunately for Sakuya, not literally.

Sakuya also, and this was critical, had to decide whether to give Remilia the gift (the chanterelles were a well-wishes gift, of course) as a maid, or as a mushroom seller. On the one hand, if she did so as a maid, Remilia might take it as a sign of a lack of commitment towards her new mercantile endeavour. On the other hand, if she did it as a mushroom seller, she would be trespassing.

Eventually, she resolved that she, as a maid, would escort herself, as a mushroom seller, briskly in and out of the premises, with the understanding that if she, as a mushroom seller, caused any disturbance, she, as a maid, would have to eject herself, as a mushroom seller, from the property, and ban herself, as a mushroom seller, that is, as a maid banning a mushroom seller, from the Mansion altogether. She didn’t want that to happen.

She took a breath to compose herself, and would have crossed the threshold of the Mansion then, but she had been so deep in her thoughts that she found herself, to her not insignificant surprise, already standing by her lady’s side. Remilia’s back was seated before her, alone, in the smaller dining room, which was where her lady ate most of her chicken Kiev.

Sakuya panicked, which was a rare moment for her. And which, for her, meant placing the basket in Remilia’s lap, and stepping back to her usual position behind her lady.

Time started again.

In the library, Patchouli Knowledge spat her tea, and not only because the Great _Layabout Asthmatic_ could not brew tea to save a drowning kitten.

“Guh,” said Remilia, suddenly be-mushroomed.

“Freshly cut chanterelles,” said Sakuya. “They are in season Underground. I thought milady might like some.”

“Oh, certainly, thank you,” said Remilia. “That’s very thoughtful of you,” she said, “Sakuya.”

Remilia Scarlet blinked, and jerked her head back over her shoulder.

 _1 The world_ —

But Sakuya was gone.


End file.
